


Hydra Hatchling

by LemonClementine



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Kid Fic, Parent-Child Relationship, Parental Kidnapping, Past Child Abuse, Punch-clock Villains, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonClementine/pseuds/LemonClementine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman, desperately trying to find the child stolen from her shortly after his birth, with the help of the people who'd become her family. </p><p>A man, raising his son and hoping to do right by the child. </p><p>And a little boy, raised within the shadowy ranks of a notorious terrorist group. </p><p>Sometimes the line between the bad guys and the good guys gets a little blurry... especially when you're six years old and your family says the "good guys" are out to get you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Uh. Yeah. What to say about this fic? 
> 
> I've seen a lot of fic where Skye becomes pregnant by Ward and raises the child with the team, so I wondered what would happen if HYDRA kidnapped the baby and had Ward raise it? 
> 
> That's where this fic comes in. The prologue is a little weird, but the rest of the story will be written in a more normal style.

Her labor came on too suddenly, too unexpectedly- they didn't have the equipment for her to deliver the baby safely there. The hospital they picked was well-equipped, and out of the way enough that it should have been safe. The maternity ward was completely empty that day, the doctor on duty was well-regarded, even though he worked for such a small regional hospital, and with Simmons' expertise, everything should have gone so smoothly. Skye's labor did not take long- less than an hour.

 

She gave birth to a healthy baby son- seven and a half pounds, twenty-one inches. Well within the normal range for a full-term newborn.

 

“He looks just like you!” Simmons cooed, smiling. “Hello there, little one!”

 

“I'd hope he looks like me, I'm his mother,” Skye replied weakly. “But good. I was worried... what if he didn't...?” Simmons just shook her head.

 

“You don't need to worry. You and your baby are safe here- we'd never let anything happen to you. Now, have you thought of a name for him?”

 

* * *

 

“Really? _This_ is where they brought her? Doesn't seem all that smart...”

 

“Ah, shut up, it makes our job easier. Do you know what the kid is supposed to look like?”

 

“Like its parents, I'd expect.”

 

“That's not helpful, dumbass.”

 

“Oh come on. Look at this place! It's not like it's going to be crawling with babies. Hell, I doubt there's any other women in labor right now. They probably picked this hospital thinking we wouldn't think to look here. But you know our proud papa back at the base knew how they'd think. And what do you know? Hughton saw them land that plane of theirs a little ways away. They're in there.”

 

“Remember, the job is to get the kid and get the hell out- Garrett said no more casualties than is actually necessary. I saw you grab that grenade. No grenades. We're not blowing shit up today.”

 

“Awww...”

 

“Look, you wanna put that baby at risk? Ward'll shoot you if anything happens to his child.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

 

The two wandered nonchalantly into the hospital, stopping at the reception desk to say hello to the friendly woman who greeted visitors to the hospital, while checking a map of the building. Paying more attention to Facebook than the two people, the greeter waved them on through to the elevator bank.

 

“Maternity ward is on the third floor, the nursery is across from it. Try not to engage SHIELD if you can help it.”

 

“You already gave this speech.”

 

“I know. But I'm nervous. We need this to go off without a hitch.”

 

“I know! Stop talking already, you're making _me_ nervous.”

* * *

 

“I think I'm going to call him Julian,” Skye said. “Julian Phillip.”

 

“Awww, after Coulson?”

 

“Yes. He's done so much for me...”

 

Baby Julian yawned a bit, and a nurse took him from his equally-sleepy mother. “Get some rest. You'll need your strength. Giving birth is tiring, isn't it?”

 

Skye yawned even louder. “No kidding.”

 

“I'll bring him back after you get a bit of rest, okay?”

 

* * *

 

 “THERE! GET HER!”

 

The nurse barely had time to scream before the baby was snatched from her hands and a gun pointed in her face. “If you tell anyone we were here, we'll kill you!”

 

Then he shot her anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

“Good, you idiots are back. I thought you'd gotten caught,” Garrett groused. “Ward's been losing his mind in here, he's driving me crazy!”

 

“Have you ever tried to sneak out of a hospital with a newborn?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then don't say anything! The kid wouldn't stop crying, and I'm not exactly cuddly!”

 

“Ah, cram it, Fischer. So, the kid- boy or a girl?”

 

“He's a little boy. His mother named him Julian.”

 

Before Garrett or the two agents could say anything else, Ward ran out, wild-eyed and breathing heavily. “My child! Do you have my child!”

 

The female Hydra agent grinned, holding out the wiggly bundle of blankets to the anxious man. “Here you go, daddy. Meet your new son.”

 

Carefully, as though he was being passed a live grenade, Ward took the bundle. Clear blue eyes blinked up at him, and the man smiled- a genuine smile. “I have a son! Hello there, baby. I'm your father. Do you know that?”

 

“He's lost his mind,” the male agent groused.

 

“Nah, all new dads are like that,” the woman replied, shaking her head. “My husband did the exact same thing.”

 

“Does he have a name?” Ward asked the two agents who'd retrieved the baby. The woman shrugged.

 

“His mother apparently called him Julian, but do what you want- he's yours now.”

 

“Julian...” Ward tried the name out on his tongue. “Julian Ward. Huh." Then, he smiled softly down at the wiggly bundle, a more genuine smile than any of the other agents had ever seen out of him. "Hello little guy! I'm your father. Can you say 'da-da?'"

 

"Dude, he's a few hours old. I don't think he's going to talk to you."

 

"What did I just tell you? New dads are kinda weird like that."

 

To Be Continued


	2. Six Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Varvara for beta-reading! Any remaining errors are my own.
> 
> EDIT 5.19.2014- Varvara's brother has informed us that Hydra is not actually an acronym, so all instances of it being capitalized have been fixed.

If someone had told him how much more efficient and motivated his agents would be after a child came to live with them, Garrett would have laughed in their face. Hydra was supposed to be an elite force, not a babysitting service, and at first after Fischer and Smith brought back Ward's son, he was concerned. Everyone in the base came out to gawk at the baby, many making “gitchy-gitchy-goo” sounds and silly faces, or talking in ridiculously high-pitched voices. And then, when he'd sent Agent Sorokova out to pick up formula (considering that Ward couldn't exactly breastfeed the baby), the idiot ended up getting spotted by an off-duty FBI agent who recognized her in the Wal-Mart. Sorokova ended up blowing the place sky-high to get away, causing a public panic that was more trouble than it was worth.

 

But as time went by, Garrett had to admit that little Julian was a brightening influence on the base. Sure, it took some getting used to, seeing hardened, long-term Hydra agents playing patty-cakes or the science team watching Teletubbies, but it was, overall, a good thing. And with the boy being raised within the organization, they had a chance to raise him in the ideology from birth, to teach him what they wanted him to know and nothing more.

 

When Ward had learned of Skye's pregnancy, the man had become single-minded in his determination to get to her. Nothing Garrett said seemed to make a dent in the man's thick head. It was ultimately Raina who got through to him: “You realize that Skye will not want to have anything to do with you, father of her child or not. She made that very clear to you when she tried to get you arrested by the FBI. But the baby... the baby won't know what you'd done if she doesn't tell it.”

 

“Because she's just going to tell my child that its father was a good man. Right,” Ward had said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Raina just smiled enigmatically and shrugged.

 

“That's only if she is the one to raise it.”

 

“Are you suggesting that she'll give the baby up for adoption? I doubt that, she hated that orphanage she grew up in.”

 

“I didn't say that, but if she did it might make it easier... no, I'm suggesting that _you_ step up and raise your own child. Be a father.”

 

The color drained from Ward's face at the woman's words. He'd known Skye was pregnant, and he knew it was his, because unless Skye had been getting it on with Coulson (and wasn't that a horrifying mental image), there wasn't anyone else who would have been in a position to impregnate the hacker. But he hadn't allowed himself to think of himself as a father. His own hadn't been much use. Would he just repeat the same the same mistakes? He was pretty sure that was how it worked, and said so. Didn't parents just repeat the same mistakes they'd been subjected to on their own children?

 

Raina just raised an eyebrow and said nothing other than, “well, it's your choice whether you want to know your child. Or not.”

 

So Ward had started tracking the movements of the bus obsessively. He bribed Agents Zuckerman and Kurosawa into keeping it under surveillance, and spent several weeks convincing Garrett to allow him to raise the child here, in the heart of Hydra. “After all, when the child grows up, it will be ready to be an agent.”

 

And so, the fateful day arrived. Agent Zuckerman ran into the training room where Ward and Garrett were sparring as fast as his stubby little legs would carry him. “The SHIELD plane... they landed it... near a hospital,” he panted, out of breath from running. “I got a call... from one of the field agents. They brought a pregnant woman in.”

 

Garrett had to stop Ward from dashing off himself to retrieve the child. “Will you _think_ for once? They know who you are! You won't have a chance of getting close. Let someone else go. You'll have plenty of time to be with your kid once we bring it back here, okay?”

 

It was a tense several hours waiting for Fischer and Smith to come back, but when they did, they had a bundle of blankets that they handed over to him- he had a son! Skye had apparently named him Julian Phillip, and Ward ultimately decided to keep the first name, but change the second. Julian Grant Ward. His son.

 

* * *

 

Six Years Later

 

“I cannot believe how big you're getting!” Raina cried, hugging the little boy with a big grin on her face. “Six years old! You're making me feel old!”

 

Julian giggled. “You're not old, Auntie Raina! And my birthday's tomorrow, so I'm not six yet.”

 

“Yes it is,” Raina agreed. “What do you think you'll get for your birthday? I heard Agent Kurosawa baked you a cake, and I overheard Agent Zuckerman and Agent Johnson were going to go to the toy store today.”

 

“I really want an X-box!”

 

“An X-box? Really?” Raina asked with a laugh. “Since when do you know how to play video games?”

 

“Since Agent Smith taught me how to play Angry Birds!”

 

“But that's not an X-box game...” Raina replied before she realized the futility of trying to argue with a child. “Well, we'll just have to see what you get, hmm?”

 

“Actually,” Julian dropped his voice to what he thought was a conspiratorial whisper- which was still actually still fairly loud. “I want something else, too.”

 

“Oh?” Raina asked curiously. Julian looked around, as though he was checking to see if he was going to get in trouble .

 

“Don't tell Daddy or Uncle Garrett,” he whispered, “but what I really want is to have a mommy.”

 

Raina's heart sank. Shortly after bringing him home, Garrett had ordered everyone to not divulge any information about Skye or SHIELD to the baby once he grew up. Ward had decided to tell Julian that his mother had died shortly after he was born. So far the boy had accepted it, but it didn't stop him from asking about his mother.

 

“Was she pretty?” he'd asked Agent Smith out of the blue one day. The agent absentmindedly responded,

 

“Was who pretty?”

 

“My mom. Was she pretty?”

 

The agent stopped in his tracks, beginning to sweat a bit. “I, ah, I don't believe I ever met her, Julian.”

 

“But she worked with you, right?”

 

“Er... I didn't start working here until after you were born,” the agent lied. Julian nodded, but sighed.

 

“I wonder what she was like.”

 

Another time he straight-up asked Ward about his mother. “What was mommy like?”

 

Ward had frozen, taking a few moments to craft his response. What was he supposed to say? How do you explain such a complicated situation to a child, especially one who believed his mother was dead?

 

“Your mother… she was beautiful, and very smart. She loved computers- she was our- my- the _team’s_ hacker. She pulled us out of more than one difficult situation with her skills,” he finally said, hoping that would be the end of it.

 

Of course, it wasn’t.

 

“I wish I could have met her,” Julian mumbled. Again, Ward paused for some time before answering, trying to come up with an answer.

 

Finally, he simply said- “I wish you could have too.”

 

* * *

 

 

Every year in late spring, it was a good idea to leave Skye alone. The days leading up to the anniversary of That Day, Skye would tend to start to withdraw into herself, her normally ebullient personality becoming snappish and irritable. The first year, she almost pushed Fitz out of the cargo hold of the Bus for an ill-advised remark. Three years after the incident, May found Skye half-dead from alcohol poisoning in her room, empty bottles scattered everywhere. Four years after the incident, Coulson had to forcibly restrain the hacker from blindly charging into a suspected Hydra safe house.

 

The past year, Skye (as well as half of the team) had been laid up with a terribly case of food poisoning, likely from the sketchy restaurant Triplett had insisted that they all try, so the anniversary passed relatively calmly. Well, as calmly as any day could be when four former SHIELD agents were practically puking their internal organs out. At least no one threatening to push anyone else out of a plane, drinking themselves to death, or trying to charge head-first into a Hydra base that would likely have turned out to be a suicide mission.

 

Coulson sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. Losing Skye’s baby had been hard on everyone. Triplett had taken a bullet in the shoulder from one of the fleeing Hydra agents. Simmons blamed herself for not having the knowledge and equipment to deliver the baby safely on the Bus. May was still furious about her inability to catch the agents. Fitz regretted being so oblivious that he didn’t realize what had happened until he was mobilized to try to track down the agents. But it had been hardest for Skye, naturally.

 

First she had found out that Ward had never truly been the person he said he was. Then, a few days after _that_ , she discovered she was pregnant with his child.

 

It had not been a terribly easy pregnancy, either. Coulson did not know much about pregnancy, but he knew enough about it to know that some of Skye’s symptoms were not normal. Simmons had diagnosed the severely nauseous and faint Skye with hyperemesis gravidarium and had the hacker hooked up to an IV for several weeks so that she and the baby were able to get the nutrients they needed. Once she’d finally gotten over the hyperemesis, she contracted a UTI. That had been a miserable two weeks for her while she waited for it to clear up…

 

When Skye finally safely delivered her son, everyone had breathed a sigh of relief. That relief was short-lived. Hydra showed up and whisked the baby away.

 

Skye was convinced, and Coulson agreed with her to a point, that the reason her son had been taken was because of who his father was. She would have wondered how Ward had discovered the pregnancy, but stopped herself. Hydra had ears everywhere- like Coulson had said, you never truly eradicated the organization. And now they had her son.

 

Not that it was much comfort, but Coulson was fairly certain that Julian was alive, or at least had been for a while after he was taken. Those Hydra agents wouldn’t have gone to all of the trouble to kidnap the baby if they planned to kill him, and he remembered the female agent shrieking at the male agent to be careful with the baby, which gave further credence to the hypothesis that Hydra wanted the baby alive.

 

Of course, that was small comfort, especially given the fact that they had no idea what the organization planned to do with the child. Maybe they wanted to test another half-assed version of the super-soldier serum, this time on a child, to see what would happen if the super-soldier was raised from birth. Or maybe they planned to bring the baby up to become an assassin, like the Black Widow. Whatever the plan, it was not something that left a lot of room for error on any side, and they needed to retrieve Julian as soon as possible.

 

Six years later, however, they had still not made any progress on that goal, and even Coulson was beginning to despair that they would ever find the child. At this point, he was beginning to wonder if there would even be anything left to find.

 

A knock at the door startled him out of his gloomy thoughts. “Come in,” he called. The door clicked open, and Skye stepped inside. “Skye. What can I do for you?”

 

“Coulson. Tell me there is still hope,” she said flatly. “And don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Will I ever find my son?”

 

Coulson waited a moment before answering, as gently as he could. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s been six years, and we don’t know what their plans were. Even if he is still alive, we don’t know if he can even be saved.

“HE IS SIX YEARS OLD!” Skye screamed. Coulson jumped. “It has been six years! Tomorrow, it will have been _exactly_ six years! And we are still no closer to getting my son back! When will we find him? You told me… you told me would find him!” Skye’s voice broke on the last word, and as though she lost the ability to stand, she flopped almost bonelessly into one of Coulson’s chairs.

 

“I meant what I told you,” Coulson said heavily, “and we will continue to search for him. But there is something you need to keep in mind- I had hoped to not bring this up, but it seems that will no longer be an option. How much do you know about Hydra?”

 

“Enough,” Skye replied.

 

“Then you know about their attempts to replicate the super-soldier serum, starting during the second world war, and continuing on into the present day- including the Centipede serum.”

 

“Yes,” Skye said slowly. “That’s how the Red Skull- what are you saying?”

 

“As you said, it has been six years,” Coulson replied cautiously, “and we never did establish a motive for the kidnapping. And Ward never seemed to be the paternal type.”

 

“You don’t think-?!” Skye’s eyes widened with horror. Coulson made an abortive movement, as though he wanted to clasp her shoulder, but then thought the better of it.

 

“I don’t know what I think,” he said. “All I’m saying is that it might be a possibility we should prepare ourselves for. I don’t think that’s what happened, necessarily,” he hastened to add, “just that it might have.”

 

Abruptly, Skye stood. “Thank you for your time,” she said stiffly, before turning and walking out without another word.

 

Coulson watched the door close behind her, and listened to her steps fade as she walked away. Again, he sighed heavily, wishing they could back to the days before SHIELD fell. Before Ward was revealed as a traitor. Before Skye realized she was pregnant. Back when they had all been a team, and Skye had been the bubbly, talented hacker he’d recruited, and not the bitter, closed-off, temperamental shell she was now.

 

In those six years, a lot had changed. And none of it was for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this week's episode kind of screwed up my idea for the trajectory of this story, if what we think happened actually did happen. Oh well. I knew going into this that canon was likely going to make this a pretty far-fetched idea anyway.


	3. Birthday Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta-read by Varvara. Any remaining errors are mine.
> 
> EDIT 5.19.2014- According to Varvara's brother, Hydra is not actually an acronym so the story has been adjusted accordingly and all instances of the name being capitalized have been fixed. Also, "Hydra" no longer looks like a word since I've typed it so much in the past few minutes.

There were a lot of things Hydra was good at.

 

Organizing a six-year-old's birthday party was not one of those things.

 

“Oh for the love of- Uhlenbrauch, what the hell is he gonna do with an assault rifle?! He's turning _six!_ The damn thing is taller than he is!” Raina had suggested that Ward pre-screen the gifts that the various visiting agents brought, and he was glad he'd taken her up on that suggestion. So far he'd already confiscated a high-powered freeze ray prototype, some strange Aesir weaponry, plastic explosives, and especially confusingly, a whole pound of marijuana. Granted, in that last case, Agent Holloway had been high as a kite and probably hadn't actually intended the weed as a present for Julian...

 

“Aw, come on,” Agent Ulehnbrauch complained. “He'll grow into it! And wasn't Garrett talking about starting the munchkin up on firearms training this year anyway?”

 

“Yes, with a _handgun_ ,” Ward replied, a vein twitching in his temple. “And not with live ammunition.”

 

“But this thing was _expensive!”_

 

“:Then keep it for yourself! Or save it for someone else's birthday! Qi Sorokova's birthday is in two weeks, give it to her or something!”

 

Agent Uhlenbrauch shuffled off, still grumbling about how expensive the gun had been and how nobody ever appreciated anything he ever did around here. Almost as soon as he had left, Agent Sorokova herself wandered over.

 

“Did Bill try to give you that damn rifle of his?” she asked. Ward groaned aloud.

 

“You knew about that?”

 

“ _Everyone_ knew about that,” the Eurasian woman replied, rolling her eyes. “The idiot wouldn't stop talking about what a good deal he got for it on the Internet. I just didn't think he was going to give it to Julian. Oh yeah, before I forget, here's the present from me. I actually got it without blowing anything up this time!” She handed over a big Lego set, but Ward didn't take it.

 

“He bought that thing _on the Internet?”_

 

“Relax, Ward,” Sorokova said. “Bill might be an idiot, but he's not _that_ much of an idiot. There's no way any agency could have traced it. Apparently he got it off some old retired mafia guy.”

 

“It's not any agencies I'm worried about!” Ward replied heatedly. Again, Sorokova rolled her eyes.

 

“You're not still concerned abouit that woman finding us, are you? Koujirou and Ethan haven't detected any intrusions, or even suspicious access attempts into the computer systems for months,” she said, referencing Agents Kurosawa and Zuckerman. “If Skye is even still alive she has no idea where we are. There's no reason for you to worry.”

 

“And of course you're an expert on what Koujirou Kurosawa does and does not know. Does he give you a network security report at night when you're cuddling?” Ward asked sarcastically. Sorokova flushed.

 

“Well... I...”

 

“Don't worry about it. You two are old news around here by now,” Ward said lightly, trying to cover up the sense of disquiet he felt. “Did you two really think you could keep your relationship a secret from Raina? Or, for that matter, from _Garrett?”_

 

“Garrett knows?” Sorokova asked, going white as a sheet.

 

“Of course he knows,” Ward said. “And if you two are smart you'd be less obvious about it. He'll think you're getting too attached to one another, and you know how much he hates that.”

 

“I... yes, of course,” the woman replied, eyes darting around the room like a frightened rabbit. “If the Legos are okay I should go wrap them...”

 

It was a bit cruel to scare her like that, Ward thought, watching Agent Sorokova maneuver her way through the crowd of agents trying to get up a child's party, or at least something approximate to one. But Sorokova grated on him- her demeanor, her personality... even her physical appearance were uncomfortably reminiscent of Skye. Or at least would be, if Skye was a Hydra agent. Truthfully, Garrett didn't care at all about the relationship between Qi Sorokova and Koujirou Kurosawa. In fact, upon learning about it, he'd just laughed and said, “So Kurosawa finally stopped being a pussy and bagged Sorokova, huh? Good for him. I thought I was gonna have to order him to ask her out.”

 

If he was really honest with himself, Ward admitted that his discomfort around the woman was due to the fact that she reminded him of Skye, if Skye had been obsessed with blowing things up. In fact, due to the resemblance between the two women, Garrett had suggested that the woman pretend to be Julian's mother. Ultimately Ward had put his foot down and said no, however. Skye was the mother of his son, and if she wasn't willing to be a part of Hydra, then his son was going to have no mother. And that's where the lie came in.

 

Sometimes, though, he wondered if it really would have been so bad to try the ruse. Ward wasn't an idiot. He knew his son wondered about his mother. Sorokova clearly liked Julian. When they were together, they really did look like mother and child. Maybe it was one of those lies that would have turned out for the better, if he'd gone along with it.

 

“You're thinking too hard again,” a familiar voice said, and a familiar hand bonked him lightly on the head. “It's a party! Lighten up! You're too serious!”

 

“It's not a party yet,” Ward replied. Garrett smirked.

 

“No, but it will be soon. Raina's trying to get your son to wear pants before he comes to get his presents and eat his cake. Whoever thought it was a good idea to get him Captain America pajama pants is is going to get very familiar with my boot up their ass. What genius thought it was a brilliant plan to get our little hatchling Captain America pajamas?”

 

Ward snorted. “Zuckerman said they didn't have any other kind of boy's pajamas at the store. It was either those, or a Barbie nightgown from the girl's section.”

 

“What the hell happened to pajamas for young boys that had trucks or whatever on them?” Garrett wondered. “Now it's nothing but this superhero shit.”

 

“Little boys look up to superheros, I guess,” Ward replied. Garrett laughed derisively.

 

“We've got plenty of role models right here! Look at yourself! You actually made something of yourself! Everyone around here is a success story- more or less, anyway.”

 

“Mmm...” Ward hummed noncommittally.

 

“Oh look, here comes Kurosawa with something that looks like a cake! Man, say what you want about that guy but whoever taught him to bake a cake like that deserves a goddamn medal.”

 

Agent Kurosawa came over with what was, indeed, a delicious-looking cake. After confirming the ingredients with Ward, he went to go drop it off at the food table before slipping off to go help with decorations. Ward watched with mild concern as as the balloon group struggled to put the balloons up. Really, how hard was it to make a balloon bouquet? But with the way his coworkers were bumbling about, one would think that placing balloons in visually appealing arrangements was harder than trying to reverse-engineer Tony Stark's suit.

 

How was it that members of what was supposed to be one of the most feared terrorist groups in the world could be so... incompetent? Maybe they had just never had much of a chance to experience something like a birthday party for themselves. And wasn't that a depressing thought? HYDRA was so full of dysfunctional, stunted people. He’d known that. HYDRA liked to recruit those people who had nothing left to live for- Garrett had been dying from shrapnel embedded in him, he himself had been in lockup after trying to kill his brother and burn down his family home, Sorokova had been desperate, turning to prostitution after her parents were killed by their country’s regime, Zuckerman’s father had killed his mother and himself, leaving the teenaged boy behind with no money and no prospects, Kurosawa had been caught trying to sneak meth into his hometown to make some quick money and Fischer had been caught _manufacturing_ meth… he could go on and on describe the situations his coworkers had found themselves in before they were recruited. In a way, HYDRA had saved them. But had they really been saved, or were they just in a different sort of bad situation now?

 

Eventually, Raina showed up with Julian in tow. The little boy was pouting and fidgeted every so often, looking unhappily down at the jeans he was wearing. Raina huffed with repressed laughter at the boy’s antics.

 

“He really wanted to wear his pajamas,” she explained. “I tried to tell him that he couldn’t, but he didn’t want to listen.”

 

“It’s my birthday!” Julian said defiantly. “I should be able to wear what I want!”

 

Ward laughed. “I don’t think it works like that, kid,” he said.

 

“Well, it _should_ ,” Julian said emphatically. Ward shrugged. He couldn’t really argue with that. He always had days where he wanted to lie around in pajamas too.

 

Now that the guest of honor had arrived, the party could begin in earnest. Ward watched as his son goofed off with the variety of agents that had shown up. Someone had rigged up a poster-sized piece of paper with a passable sketch of a donkey drawn on it, and had tied some yarn to the ends of a bunch of knives. It was a very Hydra-ized version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Maybe another time, Ward would have yelled at the others for allowing his son to handle knives so recklessly, but he stopped himself. At least Kurosawa and Fischer seemed to have everything under control, making sure that Julian did not touch the blade part with his hands, only touching the handle.

 

And wasn’t that just a marker of how fucked up everything had become? Normal parents would be flipping the fuck out at the idea of their precious offspring being so close to a weapon of any kind, let alone _playing_ with one. Ward sighed, wishing it didn’t have to be like this. If things were different, he could be raising Julian in a normal setting, away from the criminals and lunatics he was growing up with now. They could have a nice house in the suburbs and Julian could go to a normal school instead of the Academy of Whatever Random Agent Wasn’t On Assignment At The Moment. He could learn _normal_ things, like spelling and addition, instead of gun maintenance and how to blow things up. Single fathers weren’t that strange nowadays, they wouldn’t draw too much attention to themselves. Or maybe, while he was dreaming, Julian could have been brought up by both his mother _and_ his father. He could have known his true mother, not having to hide behind the lies.

 

Maybe he should have allowed Skye to raise the boy- maybe he shouldn’t have pushed Garrett to allow him to raise his son. Hiding in the shadows was no way for a child to grow up. But that’s what he got. He’d wanted his son to become part of Hydra anyway, hadn’t he?

 

No, no… he’d never wanted that. But that was the life he’d damned his child to. Julian would grow up here, amongst the agents, and would learn to become the perfect Hydra drone. Maybe if he was lucky he’d get to be in a relationship with another Hydra agent, and if they had children the cycle would begin all over again. That wasn’t what Ward had wanted at all. But that was what he had done.

 

Suddenly feeling ill, he excused himself from the party, coming up with an excuse about having a stomachache. As he beat a hasty retreat, he did not notice Raina’s eyes watching him, cold and calculating as always.

 

To Be Continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh... clearly this is not canon-compliant after the season finale. Let's just pretend the spoilery stuff didn't happen, and that Garrett and company are still around to be involved in Ward's life. 
> 
> As for the agents... they're not super important now, but they are a part of Julian's life, so they get included. Some of them will be a bit more important later on, as well.


	4. Anniversary

“It's probably for the best, you know.”

 

“What do you mean, 'for the best?' Skye hasn't left her room for two days!”

 

May sighed. Fitz was well-meaning- truly, he was- but sometimes the more intricate little bits of social interaction seemed beyond them. He was brilliant, but he wasn't always the best about tact.

 

Not that she could really blame him. No one really knew how to deal with this situation. Very few people had their child kidnapped hours after the birth, much less have the child kidnapped by members of a notoriously homicidal terrorist organization. Of course, by that same token, most people were fairly careful to not have children fathered on them by homicidal terrorists. Apparently Skye had failed to get that memo. And how careless was that, that she had even put herself in that position in the first place?

 

It made things hard for May. It was one thing to chastise Skye for her failure to notice that Ward was, to put it quite bluntly, a complete maniac. May herself had fallen for his charms, such as they were, and they had spent more than one night embracing each other. No, what really grated on the older woman was that Skye had been foolish enough to get involved to that level without taking precautions, and then subsequently fell pregnant, and then lose the child after birth. It wasn't that she didn't have sympathy. It wasn't that at all. May had grieved alongside all of them when Julian was taken. It was that Skye's grief seemed to give her license to do idiotic things that wouldn't be forgiven easily if it was anyone else doing them. Several years ago, Skye had almost gotten herself killed trying to barge into what was a suspected Hydra safe house. Coulson had managed to pull her back at the last moment. But while anyone else on the team who had tried that stunt would have been subjected to disciplinary measures (or, at least, what counted for them nowadays), all Coulson had done was sternly admonish Skye to not do anything like that again.

 

“What do you mean, 'for the best?'” Fitz reiterated, snapping May out of her increasingly dark thoughts. “Every year, Skye gets like this and I don't think it's good for her! No one has seen her outside of her room for two days!”

 

“At least she's not going to get herself killed in there,” May replied. Fitz just shook his head.

 

“You don't get it, do you? She wants her son back!” he exclaimed. “Maybe you don't understand it, but Ward _stole her son._ I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt... but this- it was so calculated. He meant to _destroy_ her. And it's working! This isn't the Skye we first met all those years ago! Ward killed her!” 

 

“You're being over-dramatic. Skye wants her son back. I completely understand that,” May said calmly, “but what she's doing now is of no use to anyone, least of all to Julian. He needs his mother to be willing to actually _look_ for him, rather than hiding in her room from what happened.” 

 

Fitz shook his head again, a disgruntled look on his face. “You're heartless.” 

 

May rolled her eyes. She wasn't heartless. She had every desire to see Julian returned safe and sound to his rightful family. But Skye's histrionics were pissing her off. She sympathized, but it was irritating to have a member of the team so out of commission for a week every year. 

 

Stalking off and glowering to herself, May shortly found herself in front of Coulson's office door. Without knocking, he opened it and let herself in. Coulson looked up from his paperwork, mildly surprised. “May. What can I do for you?” 

 

“Knock it off, Coulson, you know why I'm here,” May snapped. “I understand the logic behind it, but I disagree with the approach. This isn't helping anyone, least of all Skye.” 

 

Coulson closed his mouth. He had been about to ask what May was on about, but her last remarks made it clear. He sighed, clicking his pen to retract the tip, and leaned back in his chair. 

 

“What would you have me do, then?” he asked heavily. “I cannot just kick her off the Bus. In a few days, she will be more willing to face the world, and I don't want to interrupt her grieving. This year is especially hard on her, you know. We still haven't made any progress on finding Julian. Or, for that matter, his father...” he let his voice trail off, as “though he didn't want to acknowledge Ward's role in their shared past. 

 

“And she is being so useful by locking herself up,” May stated flatly. “We really need Skye to be _engaged_ in this. Fitz can try, but he's really not at her level when it comes to the computers. If she wants her son back, she could get back to work and hack into Hydra's systems.” 

 

“I know that,” Coulson replied, rather shortly. “But Skye isn't in any shape to do that now.” 

 

May left the office, not feeling very reassured. Coulson wouldn't do anything. Not that she could really blame him. He probably thought that Skye hiding herself away for a few days until her son's birthday had passed was preferable to Skye going crazy and attempting to storm a Hydra base, commando-style. May didn't blame her in the slightest- of course Skye was upset. Her son had been kidnapped and for the past six years the entire operation had been dedicated to finding that baby- by now, he would be a little boy. Every day that passed without out little Julian being safe in his mother's arms felt like a failure. May understood that. She understood Skye's desperation. She was intimately familiar with the despair of feeling like a failure. 

 

But damn if she didn't find the other woman's way of dealing with it counterproductive. 

 

 

* * *

 

Locked up in her room on the bus, Skye aimlessly surfed the Internet, not really looking for anything in particular. As far as she could tell from the news, there hadn't been much Hydra activity lately. A truck carrying radioactive materials had been hijacked in New York, but the culprits there had been your everyday, run-of-the-mill Russian mobsters, and anyway, there wasn't really much to be done considering that Spider-Man had taken care of the problem. There was some crazy-ass survivalist group out in Utah that was stockpiling weapons for the apocalypse or something, but overall, Hydra didn't seem to be involved in any of the daily dust-ups that happened all over the world. 

 

Most people would have felt relief that a terrorist group was inactive. Not Skye. Every day that Hydra laid low was one more day where she would be separated from her child. It was incredibly frustrating. It seemed like the second they'd nabbed the baby, the Hydra operations in the United States had gone into deep cover. The organization had still been active in other countries- just last month, they'd raided a base in Uzbekistan and taken the agents into custody. They honestly hadn't known anything about Ward (or for that matter, Julian). They'd checked. It was possible the agents had been lying, but that many agents pulling off a con where they all pretended to be incredibly confused would have been hard to pull off. The closest thing they had to any sort of understanding they'd gotten out of the Hydra agents was the apparent leader admitting that he'd gotten an email from Garrett about two years ago. Skye had pulled up the email in question, and it was really just a shopping list of old Soviet arms that Garrett wanted. It was of no use to them. 

 

It wasn't fair. Ward had manipulated her into feeling sorry for him, and their short relationship had ended up the way it had- with Ward on the run and Skye pregnant. 

 

She had considered her options. She had looked into an abortion, but Simmons didn't have the knowledge of how to perform one and Skye wasn't particularly comfortable with it. Adoption was out of the question as well. After her own growing up in an orphanage, there was no way that Skye would condemn another child to that. Really, the only viable option was to raise the baby herself, with everyone's else. And that probably would have been what happened if she hadn't had such a complicated pregnancy. She remembered every moment of the pregnancy with vivid clarity. The months of unrelenting nausea so bad that Simmons had to hook her up to an IV so that she and the baby would be able to get the nutrients they needed, followed by an incredibly painful urinary tract infection. Every time she went to the toilet it felt like she was leaking lava from her nether regions. It absolutely  _burned_ to pee, and the baby was pressing on her bladder. That meant she had to pee  _all the time._

 

The final trimester had been easier- no more hyperemesis and her UTI had cleared up... just in time for her to go into labor unexpected. Simmons had been afraid that the baby was breech, and if that was the case, she wouldn't have been able to guarantee that both Skye and the baby would have made it through delivery safely. So they touched down and taken to her to a small, out-of-the-way but still well-equipped hospital, thinking it would be safe.

 

Then everything had gone straight to hell.

 

She didn't know how Hydra had known she was in labor. She hadn't even known Hydra had known that she was pregnant in the first place, but apparently they had been watching. They hadn't made any attempts to attack the team, which in retrospect, Skye should have seen as suspicious. Very likely they had known of the pregnancy and had not wanted to do anything that could jeopardize it. But once the baby was born? It was game on. After all, Hydra had no use for _her._ It was only because she was carrying the child of one of their agents.

 

But only a few hours after her son was born, Hydra had shown up and snatched the baby away. That was six years ago now. And Skye was beginning to lose hope. Even Coulson had warned her that if they did find Julian, there might not be much left to find.

 

No, Coulson was relatively positive that Julian was still alive, but he was also a realist, and he knew enough about Hydra worked to be skeptical that they wouldn't try anything to... _enhance_ the child. This _was_ the same organization responsible for fine-tuning the Winter Soldier and the creation of the Red Skull, after all. Julian probably still lived, but whether or not he was still anything that could reasonably be called a child... that was the question.

 

Skye sighed, turning away from her computer and flopping down onto her bed. Maybe she _should_ leave the room and talk to some of her teammates. It might help to reduce the gnawing emptiness she always felt around this time of year. But she also didn't think she could bear the pity she would inevitably receive. Fitz and Simmons never knew how to deal with her around this time, and usually ended up saying something that ultimately did nothing to upset her. Triplett at least did his best to avoid the subject, but he did it so conspicuously that everyone quickly became aware of the 500-pound gorilla in the room anyway. Skye had the impression, and it only got stronger around the anniversary of the at day, that May thought she was weak for her inability to remain calm and logical when it came to this particular subject. Coulson was probably the most helpful of the lot of them, but she didn't want to see him, either- not after their last conversation.

 

Vaguely, Skye was aware of her laptop beeping at her. Huh, that was strange- she hadn't been doing anything that would make beeps, unless she'd accidentally left one of the news websites up and it was trying to play a video. But it really didn't sound like a video initializing, either.

 

Curiously, she got up and cast a glance at her computer screen.

 

It wasn't a video.

 

A dialog box had popped up, like the sort that shows up when a program wants to update itself but needs the user's pemission. But it wasn't any program Skye had ever seen before. In fact, she wasn't even sure it was a program at all.

 

The dialog box itself was unremarkable. It was gray, with buttons reading “cancel” or “allow.” What shocked her to her core was the text on the box.

 

_I know where to find your son._

 

To Be Continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this was hard to write. I want to write about the Hydra agents and their interactions with Julian, but maybe I'll do that in a side story or something...


	5. The Best Laid Plans

_Five Years Earlier_

It wasn't all that strange for Garrett to call a private meeting in the middle of the night- in an organization like Hydra, it wasn't always clear who was to be trusted and who was not, and some situations were a bit more delicate than others. This one was quite possibly the most delicate of all. Only the individuals who Garrett (and more importantly, Ward) trusted implicitly, or at least thought were the least likely to betray them, were allowed there. That limited it to Koujirou Kurosawa, Ethan Zuckerman, Qi Sorokova, Bill Uhlenbraugh, and Sam Holloway. Oh, and Raina, although she technically hadn't been invited- she just sort of showed up and took her place at the kitchen table. Julian snoozed away in the next room over, completely oblivious to the fact that in a few short hours, he would be a whole year old.

 

“Good, all of you idiots are here,” Garrett growled, scowling around at everyone gathered. Ward sat beside him, even stiffer and grimmer than usual. Raina noticed as well, that Kurosawa and Sorokova were looking like someone had told them there was a death in their families- well, considering the line of work that they were in, there very well may have been. Zuckerman looked like someone had placed something that smelled very bad in front of him, his nose wrinkling in disgust. Uhlenbraugh and Holloway, however, looked just as confused as she felt. “Anyway, Zuckerman and Kurosawa detected an intrusion into our computer systems today.”

 

“That happens all the time, though, doesn't it?” Uhlenbraugh asked. “We've got the FBI, the CIA, Interpol, Scotland Yard, the IDF, and the Japanese defense force on our tail, as well as what's left of SHIELD. They've never gotten anywhere close to finding out anything we don't want them to, they're too incompetent!”

 

“Yeah, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?” Garrett replied sardonically. “Except this time, they got further into our systems than ever before, and probably would have gotten all the way in if Kurosawa hadn't decided he wanted to read CNN at the exact time he did.”

 

“It's a level of sophistication that organizations working inside the law wouldn't have ever done,” Kurosawa spoke up. Zuckerman nodded.

 

“Whoever was behind it knows their way around a system. And the law, for that matter.”

 

“Those two idiots think it's Ward's ex,” Garrett snorted. “And I'm inclined to agree with them. Skye night be a pathetic little bitch hiding behind Coulson's apron strings, but she knows her way around computers. And there's no way she's not out there looking for Julian. She'll never have forgiven Ward for taking custody of his son. And today was too close- she very nearly found out where we've been hiding out. We're going to need a contingency plan in case Coulson's merry band of morons comes knocking. The first priority is to protect the mission- that is, Julian himself. That's why I've called Sorokova here.” Beside him, Ward made a convulsive gesture, as though he wanted to protest, but Garrett continued. “Like Skye, Agent Sorokova is Eurasian. She's also around the proper age to have a small child Julian's age. They look similar enough that there wouldn't be any awkward questions if she was seen with him.”

 

“Garrett, I really don't think-” Ward began, but was ruthlessly overruled by the older man.

 

“You don't think what? That you'd ever want to sleep with Sorokova and have a kid with her? I'm sure the feeling is mutual. But none of the other women around here look like they'd be the munchkin's mother. Fischer, Littlejohn, and Spicer are too blonde, Martinez and Mitchell are too old to have a son his age, Smith is too pale and redheaded. there's no way that Julian could pass as Dawkins' son, what with her being black. Same thing with Raina here, she looks nothing like him. Banks is too young- her being around with Julian would attract the wrong kind of attention. If it comes down to it there's not going to be time to call in someone else from one of the other bases, unless it's Nguyen from security, but there's no guarantee she'd be able to make it down here in time to get Julian out if it came down to it. No, Agent Sorokova is the closest match we have.”

 

“Plus, Julian is already fond of her,” Kurosawa spoke up. “He called her 'mama' the other day.”

 

“What?” Ward asked. “You didn't mention that to me!” he accused the female agent. Sorokova shrugged.

 

“I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. He calls most of the women around here 'mama,' and some of the men too, for that matter. You didn't hear Statton's big fit the other week because Julian called him 'mama?'”

 

“If he doesn't want to be mistaken for a woman he needs to cut his damn hair...” Zuckerman muttered under his breath.

 

“He shouldn't be calling _anyone_ 'mama!'” Ward exploded. “You shouldn't encourage it!”

 

“What do you expect me to do, then?” Sorokova retorted. “Yell at him? For god's sake, man, he's a _baby.”_

 

“That has nothing to do with anything!”

“Actually, yes, it does. I'm not going to yell at him, you moron!” Sorokova's accent began to thicken, as it usually did when she began to get upset.

 

“CHILDREN. Settle down!” Garrett interrupted. “Ward, shut up, the decision has already been made, and in case of emergency Sorokova is going to pretend to be your kid's mom. Sorokova, quit antagonizing the father of your child.”

 

“Yes sir,” Sorokova said, smirking a little bit at Ward, who swelled up like a bullfrog, but didn't say anything else.

 

“If you are all quite done, we need to get onto the next stage of the plan,” Garrett continued, as though the last interruptions hadn't happened. “It's very likely that they'll attack here. If that is what happens, it will be up to Sorokova to get ahold of Julian and run. Everyone else here will try to buy them some time to get away, and if you end up shooting one of Coulson's people, well, that's just a bonus. Sorokova will take Julian down to the garages, and they'll get away in whatever car they can get out quickly enough. Then, they'll drive to the base in Canada. While they're busy escaping, Ward will head out the other escape tunnel, and meet up with them there. Clearly we'll need to work on making the plan more streamlined, but give me a break, I've had three hours to come up with this.”

 

And edit the plan they did, over the years. When Julian was three, Garrett added drills to this, explaining to the little boy that there were bad people who wanted to hurt him and his father, so that if it ever came down to it, he would have to go with Agent Sorokova and cooperate with her. When Julian was four, Keisha Dawkin's mother moved to a house several hours away from the Hydra base, and it was decided that instead of trying to get all the way to Canada, they would go there instead, since it would be safer. Every time the plan changed, everyone who'd been present at that original meeting got an updated version. Including Raina, who really didn't have much to do with the plan in the first place.

 

* * *

 

 

_Present Day_

Skye stared at the computer message in front of her. Could she believe what it said? The document detailed exactly where Ward and the rest of his Hydra team were stationed, and the communicant told her that Julian was there too. Whoever had sent the email had explained what the plan was in case she ever showed up to get her son back- apparently a woman named Qi Sorokova was going to pose as Julian’s mother while they fled to the home of a sympathizer. The plan was for Ward to sneak out a different way, so that they wouldn’t be caught together, and then eventually end up meeting each other at the supposed safe house. The communicant had included a list of names and descriptions of who would be involved in this.

 

Despite the fact that she had no interest in homicidal maniacs or terrorists, Skye couldn’t suppress a spike of jealousy when she read the blurb about Qi Sorokova. If whoever wrote the email was telling the truth, it seemed as though she looked very similar to Skye herself. Was Ward attracted to her? Did Julian think this… this Hydra whore was his mother? Was that what they had told him? That Skye, the woman who’d carried the little boy in her body never existed, and instead this random woman, who worked for _Hydra_ , of all organizations, was his mother? He probably had no idea. It made her sick, to think of it. Ward, some faceless Hydra woman who apparently looked like her, and Julian, all playing at being a happy little family despite the fact that the two adults had the blood of innocents on their hands. Did they come home to the Hydra lair (Skye couldn’t help but think of it as a ‘lair,’ although she knew it was probably quite nice, really) after a day of planning terrorist attacks and carrying out assassinations, only to sit around the dinner table like a normal family?

 

Of course, it could be that the email’s writer was just messing with her. Maybe it was Fitz or Simmons playing a prank. But somehow she doubted it- neither one of them would be cruel enough to do something as nasty as that. The more likely scenario was that it really _was_ from a Hydra agent, but one that had no intention of helping her. Maybe it was some harebrained gambit to destroy what was left of SHIELD. Well, maybe it wasn’t really all that harebrained after all, since she was falling into the trap. She was half ready to forward the email to May and Coulson, and beg them to chart a course to the coordinates the email’s sender had included.

 

The email itself was tantalizing. Here was a document containing everything they’d been searching for, for six long years. If it was true, then Julian was once again within her reach. And even if it was a cruel prank, or a trap, to Skye, it might be worth it to follow the lead provided. It was a dangerous train of thought- Skye allowed herself a fantasy of barging directly into the Hydra base, shooting any number of Hydra agents (most of whom, in her mind, looked vaguely like herself, only with exaggerated features of heavily made-up faces, large bosoms, talon-like fingernails, too many guns, and were clinging to Ward like a limpet) before turning her gun onto Ward himself and Garrett. In her fantasy, she was not armed with any of Fitz and Simmons’ mostly-harmless little night-night guns- she had real guns with real bullets. Little Julian would run towards her, crying out for his _real_ mother, and she would scoop him up in her arms, hugging him, telling him how much she loved him, how glad she was to have him home again.

 

“Skye? Are you still in there?” Antoine Triplett’s voice shattered her fantasy. “You haven’t come out for days. May brought pizza. You should have some. It’s good.”

 

Startled, Skye called out, “no, I’m fine, really. I’m not hungry.”

 

Triplett sighed. “Coulson said you’d say that. So he told me to tell you that it’s an order, not a request.”

 

Skye rolled her eyes. Coulson meant well, she knew, but he was so overbearing at times, and it grated on her. What kind of person _orders_ someone to eat pizza? What a ridiculous order. But now that she thought about it, she really hadn’t left her room in several days, except to use the toilet. She only ate what Fitz or Simmons (she wasn’t sure which one) brought and placed outside of her door, when they could remember to. She knew everyone worried about her, but she hadn’t been very understanding of it lately. Six years of fruitless searching was getting to her. It really wouldn’t hurt for her to open up and go out, at least for a little bit. Maybe Coulson would drop the pizza thing if she just went outside for a moment.

 

“Alright,” she called back. “Give me a few minutes- I’m not really dressed.” And it was true- she wasn’t, at least not in anything she could wear outside of her room. Ratty Looney Tunes pajama pants and a stained, holey tank-top weren’t exactly “dinner with the rest of the team” attire.

 

“If you’re not down in ten minutes I’m going to send May up here,” Triplett warned.

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

* * *

 

 

Skye did come down after ten minutes, her heart pounding. She really wished Coulson had picked a better time to do this whole pizza thing- she needed to figure out what to do about the email. The whole team was going to be watching her every move. They were concerned about her, she knew. She knew that Coulson worried she was suicidal, and that Simmons was worried she was headed towards a psychotic break. She knew that Fitz still felt terribly guilty about what happened that day six years ago, and she knew that May and Triplett also sort of blamed themselves. And she was afraid that they would pick up that something was wrong, and would jump to the wrong conclusions.

 

So she pasted a fake smile on her face and strode into the main area. “I heard there was pizza?” she asked, smirking. “I hope Triplett didn’t get that kind with the pineapple on it again. Bleh.”

 

“No, May wouldn’t let me,” Triplett said, pleased to see that Skye had actually come down. For a few minutes he really thought she was going to ignore the request. “We’ve got pepperoni, cheese, and that weird chicken and mushroom stuff Coulson likes.”

 

“Hey! My pizza is _delicious_!” Coulson retorted, smiling. “Good to see you, Skye.”

 

Good. Maybe they hadn’t picked up that anything was wrong after all.

 

* * *

 

 

Raina frowned, looking at her computer screen. The little dialog box saying that the email’s recipient had read it had popped up, but there was no response.

 

Really, she didn’t feel that bad about betraying her Hydra colleagues. They would throw _her_ to the wolves in a second if they thought it would benefit them, but she had expected that Skye would jump at the chance to potentially save her son. And if there was any way to get the other woman to show her true powers, if she in fact had any, then this was the way.

 

But that also relied on the other woman cooperating. Maybe this wasn’t the best plan after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took so long! I had to deal with my summer term classes, which ended up taking a lot more effort and time than I had anticipated. Once that was done, I also wasn’t really sure of the direction I wanted to take this story in. There are two possible endings so far- the bad end and the good end (although depending on whether you like the Hydra agents or the SHIELD team better, the good and bad ends may be reversed. Heh). I’ve also started working on the backstories of the Hydra agents, although I don’t know if anyone else would care about them, or where to publish them even if I decided to, since it’s technically an original story until the very end, when Garrett shows up to recruit them for Hydra. 
> 
> Anyway, I think I know what is going to happen with this story now, and updates should happen a little more often than every three months now. As for what is going to happen, well… you’ll just have to wait to see. 
> 
> Although I would be interested to see if anyone is interested in the backstory of the Hydra agents. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and for being patient with me over this long update time!


End file.
